Excitonic interaction: another photophysical process for fluorescence-controlled nucleic acid sensing

An excitonic interaction caused by the H-aggregation of fluorescent dyes is a new type of useful photophysical process for fluorescence-controlled nucleic acid sensing. We designed a fluorescence-labeled nucleotide in which two thiazole orange dyes were linked covalently. A DNA strand containing this fluorescence-labeled nucleotide showed absorption at 480 nm before hybridization, whereas an absorption band at 510 nm became predominant when the DNA was hybridized with the complementary strand. The shift in the absorption bands shows the existence of an excitonic interaction between dyes in the nucleotide, and as a result, emission from the doubly thiazole orange-labeled DNA was well controlled. This clear change in fluorescence intensity depending on hybridization is applicable to multicolor RNA imaging in living cells.